Ancestry
The Gelius family in Sweden descends from the older Chelius lineage of Hesse — a humanistic surname adopted during the Protestant Reformation, when scholars and clergy Latinised their vernacular names. The line can be followed without a break from 1528, when Pankratius Chelius arrived in Hesse from Murrhardt in Württemberg and became pastor at Widdersheim. His descendants held church and municipal office in Hesse for some two hundred years before the family appears in Upper Franconia in the early nineteenth century, and in Sweden in the twentieth.
Timeline
Dashed bars mark spans that are approximate or attributed rather than documented.
- to 1558 The stammbaum names Ulricus Chelius I at the head of the family, a physician at Strasbourg who died on 2 January 1558. It gives his birth only as 1473 (annähernd) — approximately — and places him as father of Pankratius. That descent is the panel's own and is not supported by an independent record.
- 1528 Mag. Pankratius Chelius comes into Hesse from the town of Murrhardt in Württemberg and becomes Pfarrer at Widdersheim. His wife Elisa died in 1564. He is the earliest ancestor the line can be traced to with confidence.
- 1534–1633 Two further generations serve as pastors at Widdersheim: Johannes Chelius (1534–1591), who married Clara Rehm, daughter of the magistrate of Lich, and Mag. Johannes Chelius (died 1633), who married Ursula Arcularius.
- 1590–1721 The family moves to Dornheim. Georg Daniel Chelius (1590–1672) is pastor there; his son Ludwig Christof (1634–1687) and grandson Heinrich Daniel (1665–1721) hold the secular office of Oberschultheiß — senior local magistrate — under Hessen-Darmstadt.
- 1696–1775 Wilhelm Balthasar Chelius is Oberschultheiß, Rentmeister and princely Kornmeister at Wolfskehlen. His son Karl Wilhelm is born in December 1739.
- Late 1700s August Ludwig Karl Chelius, a lieutenant in the Regiment Isenburg, is the last generation in the direct line to carry the Chelius spelling. The stammbaum records no dates for him at all.
- 1808 Johann Philipp Martin Gelius is born in Schwarzenbach an der Saale — the first generation recorded with the Gelius spelling. He is a schoolteacher at Rehau, and dies there in 1886.
- Mid–late 1800s The family establishes itself around Rehau and Hof an der Saale. Johann Georg Christoph Gelius (1832–1902) is recorded in the mechanical and manufacturing trade in Hof.
- 1873 Carl Johann Georg Gelius is born in Rehau on 19 March. He becomes a painter (Konstmålare) and works in the Netherlands and the Rhineland before his death at Bonn in May 1914, aged 41.
- 1901 Heinz Hendrik Alfred Ottmar Gelius is born in Utrecht, where his father Carl was active as an artist. He marries Sonja Linnéa Lundström and the family settles in Västerås, establishing the Swedish branch.
Places
The line begins in Württemberg and moves north into Hesse in 1528, where it stays for roughly two centuries — first as village pastors at Widdersheim, then as magistrates at Dornheim and Wolfskehlen, a few kilometres apart on the Rhine plain south of Frankfurt. It reappears in Upper Franconia in the early nineteenth century at Rehau, Schwarzenbach an der Saale and Hof, moves west to Utrecht and Bonn with Carl the painter, and reaches Sweden in the twentieth century with Heinz Gelius.
The dashed line follows the family in sequence from Berlin to Sweden, where the Swedish branch begins. Strasbourg is shown open: it comes from the stammbaum's attribution of the earliest ancestor rather than from a record of residence.
The Rehau city archive preserves records of the Gelius name in connection with the town's industrial history, including a mechanical workshop that is now a protected technical monument. For the family after 1808, see The German Gelius Line.
The generations before 1808 are transcribed from the framed stammbaum Stammbaum des Geschlechtes Chelius und Gelius, painted in 1973, which records some 280 people and picks out the direct line in green. A few of its dates remain hard to read and are being re-checked against the original; parish and university records for Widdersheim, Lich and Giessen have not yet been consulted.
Family Tree
Fifteen generations from the earliest documented Chelius ancestor to the present, with the direct line highlighted and collateral branches shown as outlines.